


What's Three Years, Anyway?

by orphan_account



Category: Billy Elliot (2000)
Genre: Bisexual Male Character, Canon Gay Character, Friends to Lovers, M/M, prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-01-08
Packaged: 2018-03-06 15:36:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3139583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story, in short, of how Billy Elliot and Michael Caffrey lost each other for three years, but then savored each other for fifty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's Three Years, Anyway?

Billy Elliot lost contact with Michael Caffrey from age thirteen to age seventeen. They hung around on Holidays, but life was going on, the letters stopped coming, and he missed him but what can you do, so far away?

They meet up, start talking again at seventeen and it’s so fucking natural, you wouldn’t believe it. Michael’s become a sneaky gay rebel and as much a heartbreaker as he can be, being gay in Durham County.

Billy realized he was bisexual about last year, he tells Michael, but honestly in a fucking  _ballet school_ the whole thing wasn’t nearly as dramatic as he thought it’d be, and Michael’s teasingly like ‘told you you’d be a poof. All the best people are~’ And Billy just rolls his eyes and they’re still platonic friends then, but Billy keeps noticing how lovely his friend looks which is weird because this is Michael, who he’s known forever, how does he look so different now?

Then when they’re 18 and Michael takes an internship with a fashion company and Billy’s still studying for Ballet they move in together and Michael can be out around everyone and Billy’s a jerkass punk with a leather jacket, a bad attitude and a pirouette like you’ve never seen.

And they kiss once, because they were talking way past midnight about things, and feelings and people, and everything was so relaxed between them, and the air felt forgiving and their lips looked lonely, so they pressed them together.

And Billy’s never kissed before so he pulls away breathless with a “Wow” that makes Michael, more experienced than Billy, laugh, but God he’s never had a boy look at him like _that_  before. So they start dating, and it’s fucking wonderful until Billy’s grandma dies and he sobs into Michael’s arms the minute he hangs up the phone when Tony told him. It's how Michael learned that Billy Elliot snuggled things tight when he's stressed, when he can't deal with things anymore. 

They held hands at the funeral, and people stared, and his Dad gawked and balked and asked  _is your grandma’s funeral really a time to start actin’ like a pansy?_

Billy slammed the door, walked away, and Tony talked the old man down and came and found him by their mother’s grave, staring blankly with no idea what to even say to her anymore. It’s less awkward, finally, but Billy realizes he loves his dad, but maybe the only time he can be seeing him is through performances and phone calls now. Tony’s cool with it, though. He’s cooled down a lot, lately.

He takes Michael to see the ballet, Michael takes him to drag shows and Rocky Horror and Billy loves them all just the same. Michael reads Wilde sometimes and Billy prefers to dance about when he feels thoughtful, but even doing different things, they feel so right together, like something’s aligned.

So it didn’t really matter, that three years elapsed in silence. The next three, and the three after that, and so on ‘til their death beds meant all the more, and were hardly ever lonely between the Designer and his Dancer boyfriend, lover, fiance—God, they were finally able to get married!—anymore. What’s three years to figure yourselves out when you had fifty or so to figure each other out, really?


End file.
